


A Neat Trick

by TaleasOldasTimeandSpace



Series: Fairy Tales and Hokum [3]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Crack, ENTER THE VODKA, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Flynn still can't flirt, Jiya Knows All, Mummy AU, MurderVision brotp, Someone Help Them, WOULDN'T YOU THEN BE SURPRISED, all hail the Nerd Queen, all hail the garbage king, but he does wave guns around, garcy, hey look a mummy, in which the Murder Ent doesn't get to blow anything up, nah I'm kidding it's definitely a mummy, or at least the promise of one, parkouring away from awkward situations, the mature thing to do, these poor children, unless I engage in an underhanded spot of bait-and-switch and make it a Goa'uld instead, which is almost as good, will someone just shoot Emma and put her out of my misery already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleasOldasTimeandSpace/pseuds/TaleasOldasTimeandSpace
Summary: We arrive at Hamunaptra and Flynn continues to handle every situation with his customary Grace and Tact





	A Neat Trick

Lucy took a deep breath and let it out with a smile.  Hamunaptra was _beautiful._  Standing in the middle of the ruined city, the hot desert wind tugging at her skirts and making the sand swirl and dance, she felt closer to history than she ever had working at the museum.  At the museum the displays, however well-researched, were in the end educated guesses at what might have been.  But this...this was _real._  She half expected Seti I to come around the corner of one of the weathered buildings and demand to know what they were doing there, call his guards, have them arrested, ultimately throw them into the Nile to be eaten by crocodiles and hippos…  Okay, maybe that was a little too real.  And maybe Jiya was right when she said Lucy read too many dime novels.  Not that she was in any position to judge Lucy’s awful-yet-delicious reading habits, not with her obsession with H. G. Wells.

She shook her head at her own lurid imagination and gathered her skirt in one hand so she could climb up to where Jiya and Flynn were preparing for their entrance into the city proper.  Jiya’s skill at cards had paid off sooner than any of them had anticipated, allowing them to replace most of the equipment lost with the boat.  Lucy would never admit it, but the burgundy dress she now wore was one of her favourite purchases from the resupply.  And if the way Flynn had looked at her when she’d first put it on—like he'd just been kicked in the head by a large and particularly flexible camel—was any indication, he approved, as well.  The poor man hadn't been able to speak to her in complete sentences for a full hour, which shouldn't have been nearly as sweet as it was.

‘Do they know something we don't?’  The question floated across the city, jolting her from the recollection of Flynn's rather adorable blush.  Lucy glanced to the rival dig.  Mr. Bruhl, one of the more approachable members of the competition, looked frustrated as he spoke to the leader of their expedition.  Lucy couldn't blame him—Professor Neville was as unpleasant a little weasel of a man as she had ever had the misfortune to encounter, and she'd encountered many unpleasant little weasel men in the course of her career.

Neville waved a hand.  ‘Don't be ridiculous, Mr. Bruhl.  They're led by a woman.  What does a woman know?’

Lucy gaped, torn between the desire to laugh and the need to march across the city and punch the appalling man in the nose.  Laughter won.  As if they would even _be_ here without Emma to show them the way.  Add to that the fact that their dig was set up nowhere _near_ the statue of Anubis and, well.  Showed how little they knew.

Besides, she was well aware she didn't know how to punch, and he wasn't worth hurting her hand.  She made a note to ask Flynn to teach her at the earliest opportunity.  And speaking of Flynn…

‘Thanks,’ she said as she took the hand he offered.

‘Of course, Dr. Preston.’  He easily pulled her up the last few feet.  ‘So what's with the old mirror, anyway?’ he asked, nodding to where Jiya was giving the large bronze disc they'd found a final polish.

 _‘Ancient_ mirror,’ Jiya corrected without looking up from her task.

‘It’s an ancient Egyptian trick,’ Lucy added, elbowing him lightly.  ‘You’ll see.’

Flynn hummed thoughtfully, fidgeting with something behind his back.  ‘Any particular reason you picked this spot?’

Lucy waved to the statue behind them.  ‘According to the Bembridge Scholars, there’s a hidden compartment at the base of Anubis.  That’s where we’ll find the book of Amun Ra.’

‘And do the Bembridge Scholars know what they’re doing?  After all, you’re the one here.  Not them.’

‘No, they do not,’ Jiya answered before Lucy could.  ‘If they did, they would have offered Lucy a job already.  Not enough experience in the field, my foot.’

Flynn blinked at Jiya’s vehemence, and Lucy rolled her eyes.  ‘Ignore her, she’s overprotective.’

‘But not wrong!’

Lucy laughed.  ‘No, not wrong.’

Flynn waved at the rival dig.  ‘I take it our friends there don’t follow the Bembridge Scholars.’

Lucy grinned evilly across the city.  ‘Nope. They’re digging in the wrong place.’  And wouldn’t Neville be _livid_ when he realized.

‘Speaking of, ah, digging…’  He pulled a small canvas bundle from behind his back and pushed it into her hands.  ‘I, uh,’ he wet his lips—a gesture she _knew_ was unconscious but seemed specifically designed to drive her round the bend—as his eyes darted everywhere but her, _‘borrowed_ it from our, ah….’  He gestured vaguely.  ‘American brethren.  I thought you might like—uh, might need it.  So… Yeah.  Let's go find some treasure.’  Nodding decisively, he grabbed a coil of rope, fastened one end to the statue, and dropped into the hole, all before Lucy could do more than blink.

Slowly, she unrolled the bundle.  ‘Oh…’  Inside was a set of the most beautiful tools she'd ever seen—picks, brushes, chisels, everything she could need.  She looked up to where Flynn had disappeared and caught Jiya grinning at her.  ‘What?’

‘He _likes_ you,’ Jiya sing-songed.

‘Shut up.’  Lucy busied herself rolling the tools back up.

Jiya's grin widened.  ‘And you like him!’

Rather than dignify that with a response, Lucy followed Flynn's eminently reasonable example and jumped into the hole.

* * *

 

The mirror trick was impressive, the room it illuminated less so.  Every surface was covered in dust and sand from generations of storms and hung with cobwebs so thick they looked like they could be cut down and used for blankets.  But Lucy's excitement to be standing in a place abandoned for over three thousand years more than made up for what it lacked in aesthetics.

‘So where are we, Dr. Preston?’  Garcia asked, more to watch the way her face lit up as she explained than for the explanation itself.

‘I think we're in a preparation room, don't you agree, Jiya?’

Jiya nodded.  ‘Definitely. Look at the tables.’

He cocked an eyebrow.  ‘Preparation for what?’

Lucy leaned toward him and lowered her voice dramatically.  ‘Entering the afterlife,’ she said, waggling her eyebrows.

There was a point to the conversation, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it was.  His entire focus had narrowed to Lucy’s little grin and those eyebrows.  ‘Uh…’

Jiya patted his arm as she passed.  ‘Mummies, Flynn.  This is where they made the mummies.’

‘Right.  Mummies.  I knew that.’

She smirked at him over her shoulder.  ‘Sure you did.’

‘I believe you mentioned Anubis, Doctor?’  Garcia grabbed a torch off the wall, lighting it while pointedly ignoring Jiya.  ‘Please, lead the way.’

Their progress to the statue was slow, as Lucy was constantly getting distracted by carvings or stopping to exclaim over hieroglyphs.  That was fine; a slower pace meant less chance of running headfirst into something unpleasant.  The uneasy sense of _wrong_ that he’d mostly managed to ignore outside while sweltering under the desert sun was pressing around him in these claustrophobic, musty tunnels, and not even Lucy’s enthusiasm for the Old Kingdom (or Jiya's dry commentary on the same) was enough to dispel it.  Almost absently, he pulled one of his revolvers from its holster.  He'd feel a lot better if he could shoot something.

The tunnel they were following opened up into a wide room fashioned from a natural cavern and the oppressive feeling lightened a bit, just enough for his breath to come a little easier.  Across the room was the base of the Anubis statue, resting unevenly on a pile of rubble where it had apparently fallen through the ceiling.

Lucy darted to the statue and immediately began poring over the hieroglyphs etched into its base.  Jiya drifted over to one of the cavern walls, examining what looked to Garcia like a carving of a man being eaten alive by scarabs.  Oh, that wasn’t unsettling at _all._

He’d barely come up beside Lucy when he caught the echo of footsteps and voices from the only other entrance to the room.  He dropped his torch and drew his second revolver as he stepped in front of Lucy, bringing both guns up just as the competition emptied into the cavern and brought the entirely of their arsenal to bear on the three of them.  Jiya materialized beside him and pulled the hammer back on a tiny Derringer she'd produced from nowhere.

Everyone stood frozen for a moment, a Renaissance tableaux of a Wild West stand-off.  When they were satisfied that they were not, in fact, about to be attacked by mummies (or Martians, or whatever), the competition collectively lowered their guns.  Garcia waited a beat before doing the same.

Emma smirked at him.  ‘We really have to stop running into each other like this, Flynn.’

He rolled his eyes, but didn't dignify that with any more of a response.

Lucy leaned around him cleared her throat.  ‘Yes, well, we've got a lot of work to do, and I'm sure you do, too.  We won't keep you.’

Neville elbowed his way to the front of the group.  ‘Shove off!  This is our dig site!’

Garcia felt Lucy stiffen.  ‘We got here first,’ she hissed.  The heat of her glare singed his arm.

Apparently the threat of the small historian's wrath was terrifying, because the competition quickly brought their guns up again.  Naturally, Garcia and Jiya did the same.  Their three guns were rather laughable in comparison to the sheer firepower of their opponents, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take as many of them with him as he could if it came to a shoot-out.

He _really_ hoped it wouldn’t come to a shoot-out.

Neville drew himself up with a sneer.  ‘Miss Preston—’

‘Doctor.’  Lucy and Garcia spoke at the same time, and he caught her startled grin out of the corner of his eye.

Neville blinked, and Garcia shrugged.  ‘She earned it,’ he said simply.

‘They’ll let anyone get a degree these days, won’t they?’ Neville asked, lip curling.  Garcia was about ready to shoot him on principal.

Lucy smiled sweetly.  ‘You would know, wouldn’t you, _Dr._ Neville?’

Neville opened his mouth, but the indignant yelp of one of his colleagues cut him off.  ‘That’s my toolkit!’  The man—Noah, if Garcia remembered correctly—pointed an accusing finger at Lucy.

Lucy jerked the pack out of his reach, and Garcia pointed one of his guns at Noah’s head.  He didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebrow.

Noah swallowed and let his hand drop.  ‘Perhaps I was mistaken?’

Wise choice.  Garcia nodded approvingly and shifted his gun away from the other man.

Emma made a show of yawning widely and leaned an arm on Neville’s shoulder.  ‘This is all very cute, boys, but like Jake here said, run along and find somewhere else to play.  We’re busy.’

Neville looked like he’d swallowed a bad date, but he didn’t contradict her.

Garcia shifted his aim to Emma.  ‘Or I could just shoot you.  I know which plan I prefer.’

‘Please, with these odds?’  She waved at the small army surrounding her.  ‘Even you aren’t that insane, Flynn.’

He shrugged, gun never wavering.  ‘I’ve had worse.  And it would make me feel so much better inside.’

‘I, for one, am also in favour of this plan,’ Jiya said.

Garcia bared his teeth in a sharklike grin.  ‘Looks like my odds are improving.’

‘Emma’s right.’

Lucy’s voice cut through the rising tension as everyone turned to stare at her.  She ignored them, turning her back to the competition to look Garcia in the eye.  ‘It’s a big city.  There are other places to dig,’ she told him.

Wait, wasn’t she the one who wanted to dig here in the first place?

‘But Lucy, you were the one who wanted to dig here!’

Yes, exactly.   _Thank you, Jiya._

‘Trust me.’  Lucy raised her eyebrows at Garcia, glancing down significantly before returning her gaze to his.

He wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this, but he _did_ trust her, so…  Releasing the hammers on his revolvers, he returned them to their holsters.

Jiya made an exasperated noise.  ‘Seriously, Flynn?’

He quirked an eyebrow and inclined his head towards Lucy.  ‘You heard the Doctor.’

* * *

 

If Emma and Neville had known Lucy at all, they would have known to be concerned at how quickly she gave in.  Lucy Preston was not a quitter.  They didn’t know her, however, which was why they were going to be so very surprised when the three of them popped out from under the Anubis statue like a trio of enterprising gophers.

That was the plan, anyway.  She hadn’t considered quite how difficult burrowing was when she first realized there was another chamber beneath the Anubis room.  But then, she hadn’t had a whole lot of time to plot, either.  Mostly, she’d been trying to avoid engaging in all-out war with the rival dig.  Guerrilla tactics she could handle, but there was no way they could survive a shootout, no matter the confidence Flynn projected that he could and would take them all.

 _One_ of them had to be sensible, and it certainly wasn't going to be Flynn.

She was sensibly considering calling it a day when Flynn took one more swing with his pick and _something_ large and heavy fell from the ceiling with a dull thud.  The three of them dove out of the way, coughing from the dust that clouded the room.

‘What,’ Jiya gasped when she caught her breath, ‘was _that?’_

Flynn eased himself to his feet and turned to Lucy, who gratefully took the hand he held out.  ‘It looks like a sarcophagus,’ he said.

Jiya waved at the hole in the ceiling.  ‘Buried at the base of Anubis?  Who does that?’

Lucy inched closer, distantly aware of Flynn following at her shoulder.  ‘He must have been someone _very_ important.  Or…’  She frowned, tracing her fingers over the chisel marks on the lid.

‘Or?’  Flynn prompted.

‘Or not.  Look.’  She tapped the lid gently.  ‘All the sacred spells have been chiseled off.  He wasn’t important, he was cursed.  In this life and the next.’  Despite herself, a chill ran down her back.  She didn’t believe in curses, but she hadn’t expected to have the sarcophagus of a cursed mummy fall from the sky, either.  And it was harder to remember why curses were ridiculous standing in the musty tunnels beneath a long-abandoned city.

Those tunnels weren't done her claustrophobia any favours, but she'd managed to ignore it.  Mostly.

Jiya whistled.  ‘Whoever he was, he must have done something very naughty.’

Flynn nudged the lid experimentally.  ‘Whatever he did, they made sure no one would be opening him up in a hurry.  You'd need a crowbar to get this open.  Or dynamite,’ he added thoughtfully.  ‘I have some, if you want to give it a try.’

‘What?  No!’  Lucy’s voice went up half an octave in shocked outrage, and she spread her arms to shield the sarcophagus—as if she had any hope of protecting it from Flynn if he truly craved a spot of light mayhem.  ‘We are not blowing anything up!’

He shrugged.  ‘Suit yourself.  But you’re not getting in there without a key.’  Leaning close, he whispered, ‘Or dynamite.’

Something about his words caught at her memory, but it was impossible to concentrate with him that close.  She shoved past him with a glare.  ‘That is _not_ proper archaeological method.’

‘Oh Dr. Preston.’  He leaned against the sarcophagus and crossed his arms, grinning unrepentantly.  ‘You’re no fun.’

Jiya cleared her throat loudly, making Lucy jump.  ‘As entertaining as this is, I suggest we pack it in for the night.  It’s been a long day, and,’ she went over to her bag and pulled out a bottle of vodka, ‘I borrowed a little something from my friend Karl earlier today.’

Flynn raised an eyebrow.  ‘Borrowed?’

She shrugged.  ‘Eh, he had a trunk full of this stuff.  He’ll never miss it. Frankly, I’m impressed—and a little concerned—that the man managed to save it from the boat _and_ lug it across the desert.’

He laughed.  ‘This is why I like you, Jiya.’

Lucy pinched the bridge of her nose.  ‘You two can’t keep stealing things—’

‘Borrowing!’  Flynn and Jiya spoke in unison.

‘—from the Americans.  One of you is going to get shot.’

‘Not if I shoot them first,’ Flynn said cheerfully.

‘An excellent plan!’  Jiya saluted him with the vodka.  ‘I approve!’

‘I give up.’  Lucy grabbed her pack and stalked out of the room.  ‘I’ll be at the camp when you two are finished being criminals.’

‘So you’re saying you’ll see us in the morning, then?’ Jiya called after her.

Flynn caught up with her easily, drat his unnecessarily long legs.  ‘Don’t forget, you’re the one who pulled me out of prison, Doctor.’

She glanced at him sideways.  ‘A fact I have yet to regret, despite your questionable ethics and frankly appalling encouragement of my sister’s nefarious tendencies.  In fact,’ she added, elaborately casual, ‘I rather think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.’

He stopped dead in the tunnel, that kicked-by-a-camel look on his face again.  Lucy grinned to herself as she continued towards the surface. Definitely the best decision she’d made in a very long time.

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing the tags and had a Sudden and Vivid picture of Flynn as O'Neill and now I have another Timeless AU taking up valuable real estate in my brain. Though he would also make a Good and Valid Teal'c, but I think his sassiness is more O'Neill than Teal'c. Either way, Lucy would be Daniel, and Rufus would be Carter if she didn't go into the military. Jiya would be in charge of dialing the Gate, and Denise would be General Hammond.
> 
> ...I apologize for spamming my Mummy notes with Stargate SG1 headcanons.
> 
> Next up will definitely be the Medjai attack. I'm so exited!
> 
> Come scream at me on [tumblr](https://taleasoldastime-andspace.tumblr.com/)! I've got loads of gently-used headcanons I'd love to gush about :)


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